The Dowager had several times hinted to the Duke of York that she considered it high time that Constance should take up her residence at Cardiff, for she was a firm believer in "the eternal fitness of things," and while too much love was in her eyes deeply reprehensible, a proper quantity of matrimony, at a suitable age, was a highly respectable thing, and a state into which every man and woman ought to enter, with due prudence and decorum. And as a wife married in childhood was usually resigned to her husband at an age some years earlier than Constance had now attained, the Dowager was scandalised by her persistent absence. The Duke, who recognised in his daughter a more self-reliant character than his own, and was therefore afraid of her, had passed over the intimation, accompanied with a request that she would do as she liked about it. That Constance would do as she liked her father well knew; and she did it. She stayed at home, the Queen of Langley, where no oppressive pseudo-maternal atmosphere interfered with her perfect freedom. But in the October following the death of her mother, a thunderbolt fell at Constance's feet, which eventually drove her to Cardiff. The Duke was from home, and, as everybody supposed, at Court. He was really in mischief; for mischief it proved, to himself and all his family. Late one evening a courier reached Langley, where in her bower Constance was disrobing for the night, and Maude was combing out her mistress's long light hair. A sudden application for admission, in itself an unusual event at that hour, brought Maude to the door, where Dona Juana, pale and excited, besought immediate audience of her Senorita. The Princess, without looking back, desired her to come forward. "Senorita, my Lord's courier, Rodrigo, is arrived hither from Brockenhurst, and he bringeth his Lord's bidding that we make ready his Grace's chamber for to-morrow." "From Brockenhurst! Well, what further?" "And likewise _her_ Grace's chamber--whom Jesu pardon!--for the Lady newly-espoused that cometh with my Lord." "Mary Mother!" exclaimed Maude, dropping the silver comb in her sudden surprise. Constance had sprung up from her seat with such quick abruptness that the chair, though no light one, fell to the ground behind her. "Say that again!" she commanded, in a hard, steel-like voice; and, in a more excited tone than ever, Dona Juana repeated her unwelcome tidings. "So I must needs have a mistress over me! Who is she?" "From all that Rodrigo heard, Senorita, he counteth that it should be the Lady Joan de Holand, sister unto my Lord of Kent and my Lady of March. She is, saith he, of a rare beauty, and of most royal presence." "Royal presence, quotha!--and a small child of ten years!" cried the indignant girl of nineteen. "Marry, I guess wherefore he told me not aforetime. He was afeard of me."